


The Sixth Game

by spicedrobot



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Breathplay, But only a little, Dirty Talk, Frottage, Hair-pulling, Hand Jobs, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining, Post-Coital Cuddling, Sweat, dick stepping, this starts hard and gets tender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:01:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22745974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicedrobot/pseuds/spicedrobot
Summary: When Arthur pushes his luck, Charles calls him out on it.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan/Charles Smith
Comments: 16
Kudos: 252





	The Sixth Game

**Author's Note:**

> This was just an excuse to pine about Charles!! I haven't finished this game yet so apologies if things aren't quite right plot/character-size. This is all Sev's fault!  
>  **NSFW art ahead!**

"Not so proud now, are you?"

There's a glint in Charles' eyes, one Arthur doesn't see too often. For the most part, Charles is a gentle man: shushes spooked horses, tends wounds like a mother and with as much precision, pulls his own weight and then some without so much as a grumble. 

This is the look Arthur tries not to think about: the steel edge of righteous fury as Charles slammed Micah into the ground, as he watched Arthur choke the life from the poacher’s eyes—not with joy, but with grit, with certain, grim justice. Arthur can count the number of times that look’s been leveled his way, always when he'd done something dumber than hell. It’d never earned him more than a stern word, a warning like a knife to the throat and twice as frightening. That's what Arthur should be feeling: fear, trepidation. But Arthur had never had his head screwed on quite right, probably why Mary could never truly have him: too wild, too unpredictable, too damn stupid.

Beneath Charles' worn leather boot and the fire’s light wavering at the edge of his vision, the certain thing snaking through his belly couldn’t exactly be called fear. No, it's something else, something he's been sidestepping for as many months as he's known Charles, since the first time he staggered into camp with Dutch slapping his shoulder, introducing him like Charles'd invented the wheel. Strong and piercing, calm but never cowed, a carefully tended fire with roasted coals, ready to ignite whatever, whoever, was stupid enough to get too close.

"Ya, ya sneaky bastard," Arthur says, not slurring, not really, stunned, more like, the pressure on his sternum increasing a hair closer to uncomfortable.

They'd been hunting for the past three days, finally picked off the wolves that had been feasting on Jesse McCallister's flock. They’d skinned and bled them of course, the pelts secured over Cherry and Taima’s backs, every usable part packed and readied for Pearson’s table. With bills lining their pockets and hot food in their bellies, they'd celebrated with more than the normal amount of whisky. Drink made the night flow comfortable and easy, or maybe it was just the company; Arthur’d always appreciated Charles, an easy man to pass the time with on top of everything else. A quiet game of cards, a few stories of the old times, the harder times of before. One bottle joined the second at their feet. Then, when Arthur’d lost his fifth hand, another game: a round of arm wrestling that ended with Arthur’s back flat on hard earth, pinned beneath Charles’ boot, his face framed by the deep, mottled purple of the night sky, dawn a few hours off but not far in coming.

"That's how it's gonna be? You get a few more kills than me and get big head? You can’t pull the wool over my eyes, Arthur Morgan." 

His voice is low, graveled, quiet words even though it's just to the two of them. Charles waits with lips pursed, the fire catching in his eyes.

Arthur's mouth dries up, a shiver in his spine, a rumbling in his guts; words are lost to him. He doesn't know what to say much less guess what Charles wants to hear. How had Arthur fooled himself into thinking he could win against a man like him, tricks or no? Arthur ain’t much of anything, not a looker, none too smart, no silver tongue or charm: scaring and killin’ is about all he can manage. Compared to Charles, upright and righteously proper, keen and kind, ruthless only when necessary; a man to aspire to, to covet, to turn over in his mind again and again–

Arthur swallows, slow and a little painful, and gingerly places his hand on Charles' boot.

"C'mon now, m'sorry," he mumbles. 

Charles shifts his foot until it presses, firm and unyielding, against his throat. The sound Arthur makes is anything but dignified, and his face reddens swiftly.

"No, I don't think you are."

"Charles—" Arthur chokes out, grasping at his calf but finding no give. "Don't mess with me." He spits as much venom as he can, but his words shake, his fingers too, thoughts and words unraveling. 

Arthur’s never been so helpless against one of his own, not like this. Not with his belly warming up like desert sand in noontime sun, the heat reaching fever's pitch. He's itching for something, needing it, and he can see in Charles' eyes just when he realizes it too.

Charles at his back, spotting the deer through frosted brush those months ago, whispered words, calloused hands laced over one another. _Aim. Draw. Loose. Just like that, Arthur. You're pretty good at this_. He flushed then too, knowing why but never saying, never wanting to be different, to be yearning for what a man ought not be yearning for. 

“What are you playin’ at, Arthur?” Voice firm, soft, and Arthur shudders, wishing he was sober, wishing he was dead ass drunk so he didn’t have to deal with that open expression Charles offers him so readily, so easily. 

Praying he’s not so easy to read, hoping as that gaze passes over him, Charles won’t notice just how affected he is, how on edge this has him. Arthur shuts his eyes tight as Charles doesn’t so much remove his boot but shift it again. His neck is freed, but breathing doesn’t get easier, his heart thundering like a fanned hammer and just as dangerous.

There’s nothing left to hide, nothing that can explain away the guttural groan torn from his lips like a curse when the insistent weight of Charles’ boot settles just beneath his belly, right along the line of his cock trying so valiantly to tent his ancient jeans.

“Is this what you want?” He’s never heard Charles like this before, a bit breathless, voice so deep he can feel it in his bones. “Is this what gets you hot?” The pressure doubles, and tears prick the edge of Arthur’s eyes, but his hips rise against all sense into that touch, one for one, needing, craving, begging for whatever Charles will give him.

_Art by[@SevereniNaughty](https://twitter.com/SevereniNaughty)._

The silence drags, poignant and painful and he needs something to happen now, needs Charles to leave him alone or do something besides staring down at him with a look he’s _never_ seen before. He claps his hand over his eyes, swallowing another moan threatening to spill and embarrass him further.

“I...dammit, Charles…” He grits his teeth, failing to stay still no matter how hard he tries. “Don’t make me say it...jus…”

A beat of silence, an afterimage burned into his eyelids, a line of heat ruining what he thought he was: a normal man fighting the steady gain of a newer, orderly world.

“Just?” A single world like a prayer, reverent and punctuated with the ever heavying weight of Charles’ heel.

“Jus, get _down_ here already,” Arthur barks.

He's not sure who moves first, but it must be Charles, enough that Arthur can slip from beneath his boot, tucks into the man's tent in an ungainly half crawl. Charles doesn’t even comment on it, of course he doesn’t, the man too busy setting his sights on more pressing things. Arthur only has a single moment to freak out, feeling whisky-addled and more vulnerable than he’s felt in years, not since Mary took his hand and made him love something fierce for the first time. But he’d be lying if that was the only scare he’d ever felt, the ones he’d buried harder than his pining for her: the tingling heat of his lips when John pulled back and smiled at Abigail, her dare bested, the strange twist in his guts when Wasp offered him a corset, the quiet wistfulness of Beau Gray, lovesick and a little more than pretty, asking him what kissing is like. 

It’s not Mary’s soft, unlined grip that seals around the nape of his neck and holds him still: larger, stronger, roughened by the snap of the bow, the handles of a hundred axes. It leaves no option but to taste the lips that descend, hungry and whisky-hot, the burn of Charles’ beard against his own as he moans and parts his lips, Charles like unyielding stone against him.

He wonders if he ain’t dead or dreaming; had this always been close enough to taste? Just had to piss Charles off the right way, show him something he didn’t dare show to another soul? 

Charles makes a sound into his mouth, something like a growl, his tongue sliding against his own, angling closer, chest to chest, hip to hip, and fuck, of course there’s no hiding anything now, not when he’s continually making his ill intentions known with the hard line straining his jeans. Only that Charles has an answer for him, miraculously unchecked by the alcohol throbbing through their veins. When–how–well, Arthur ain’t one for thinking, not when he’s lip locked with the very man he thought he’d be stealing glances at for the rest of his short-lived life. 

They kiss like they’d invented it, messy and needy, nipping lip and tongue and swallowing each other’s gasps. Charles slides his thigh between his, presses sure and firm against his cock, and Arthur throws his head back, a breathless wheeze followed by several embarrassing grunts caught behind his teeth. 

“Damn, d-damn—”

A kiss to his jaw, lips drawing a swift line to beneath his ear, Charles’ grip shifting from his nape to his throat with a soft, testing squeeze.

“Charles—” It comes out little more than a breath, limbs throbbing; his blood can’t decide where to rush, his cock or his head and everything getting lost in between. His answer is a tightening of grip, a kiss. Teeth, tongue, hot breath against his neck, Charles’ thigh rocking against him, an infuriating catch-drag that has him grunting with each jostle.

He can’t take it anymore, lying back and getting played with, but his hands feel dumb, fingers twitching for something, anything, settling on Charles’ hips, flexing and thick beneath his palms, and _fuck,_ that does it for him, like a dam breaking. Arthur feels downright greedy, groping up his sides, Charles’ muscles twitching, and he wiggles his fingers into Charles’ shirt and earns a stupefied groan against his throat. He touches his chest, hairy and broad, cups Charles’ pecks, nipples pebbled against his palms. The noises Charles makes are everything, high, quiet whimpers: both of them shocked at the sound.

Lips again at his own, the kiss mean, another wager, a fight that Arthur can’t win and one he’s not even sure he wants to. He’s gotten everything he’s craved right here, trapped between a layer or two of cloth that he’s aching to remove. Charles takes pity on him, stills his hips as Arthur scrambles to undo his fly. Time seems to slow when he draws Charles’ cock into his palm, weighty and thick and wet, and he wants to look, to savor, but Charles moans in his ear, buries his lips against his neck. His hips surge into his grip, and then he can think of nothing but touching, giving Charles an apology with a firm, quickly shifting hand.

“Fuck, Arthur—god damn…!” 

He’d never heard anything like that from Charles, not even when Charles’d taken one of the girls to bed a few weeks ago; then it’d been nothing more than the quiet sounds of shifting and soft, fluttery sighs. Not that Arthur hadn’t been thinking of it since it happened, not that he hadn’t been dreaming about it whenever he caught a few hours of sleep, touching himself in the dead of night when the booze had left him weak enough to give in.

This, he could remember forever: Charles’ smell, leather and whisky and hay, the burn of his beard along his throat, blunt teeth against mottled hickeys, the tumid, powerful slide against him, the heft of Charles’ body, his closely kept whimpers as his thrusts grow stilted and punishing. He’s hot like a furnace, trapped beneath Charles, the man’s sweat dripping, his lips pursing as he huffs into Arthur’s ear. He’s close, so close, and Arthur’s never wanted to make someone else feel so good before.

“C’mon, Charles, for me, wouldja…” 

He twists his fingers into Charles’ braid and tugs just like he’d imagined doing. His chin snaps up, throat exposed, Charles’ choked out moan that nearly has Arthur coming then and there as he spills over Arthur’s fist, messing his dirty, sweat-damp shirt. Arthur’s name on his lips when he finally has the air for it, huffing like an engine as Arthur lazily milks the last whispers of pleasure from his body. He closes his eyes, basks in the feeling, Charles tucking halfway into his side, peering at him with the darkest eyes Arthur’s ever seen. A moment of bashfulness, a moment of being seen, then Charles slides his hand down his belly and palms his cock, rough and sure.

“You ain’t gotta,” Arthur grunts breathlessly.

Charles only shakes his head, a sated laugh against his skin that makes Arthur groan.

“I think you’ve waited long enough.”

He bites his fist when Charles draws out his cock, not even a moment to feel the night’s chill as he’s palmed greedily. 

“Always wanted to do this,” Charles says, soft and kind, like it was easy. He half sits up then, taking Arthur in, his blotched face, the marks at his neck, his heaving stomach, as he works him to pieces. 

Arthur wants to beg, wants to warn Charles he’s damn close, so embarrassingly quick it hurts his pride, but then pressure, again, mercifully at his throat, squeezing in a way that’s not for killing, that’s just for him, pleasure blooming in his mind as everything goes hazy and easy, a single line from his heart to his cock and his whole world is the man staring at him, close and beautiful like his wildest fantasy.

Air sealed off, and pleasure hits him like a wall, thunders in his ears, face aflame, shaking apart as Charles tugs him just beneath his glans, shushes him with his crooked half-smile looming in Arthur’s vision.

“Arthur, hey…” suddenly his face is so close again, pretty as a kiss. “...you ok? Breathe.” Arthur sounds like he’s smoked a pack all at once as he catches his breath, still shivery and wired, Charles not drawing away from him, only cleaning them gingerly with an old ‘kerchief, tucking Arthur back in his pants while the man rubs his own face and remembers how to think. How’s he’s gonna face Charles in the the morning, hell, in the next few moments.

Only he doesn’t have to worry about it at all. Charles sits up slightly, draws the pelt that they’d kicked down at the end of the tent over them both. 

“Stay with me,” Charles says, having the gall to look bashful now, after they’re spent and marked with each other’s lips, the trails of Charles’ hands still burning on his skin. 

Arthur nods, a quiet, graveled ‘sure’ the only thing he can muster as Charles settles behind him, tosses a hand around his middle and pulls him close. His breath ruffles Arthur’s hair as the first threads of dawn drag themselves over the horizon.

They’d be late heading back, and he’s sure Dutch’ll have something to say about it. But that’s a problem for later, when he’s not comforted by the closeness of Charles at his back, warm and dozing off in the early morning gloom.


End file.
